I am exhausted by traditional memoir. I am exhausted by the architecture of the conventional novel.

Anything processed by memory is fiction.

My medium is prose, not the novel.

Everything I write, I believe instinctively, is to some extent collage. Meaning, ultimately, is a matter of adjacent data.

I don’t know what’s the matter with me, why I’m so adept at distance, why I feel so remote from things, why life feels like a rumor.

A book should either allow us to escape existence or teach us how to endure it.

To me, the moment you're talking about nonfiction you're talking about reality.

If I'm reading a book and it seems truly interesting, I tend to start reading back to front in order not to be too deeply under the sway of progress.

Momentum, in literary mosaic, derives not from narrative but from the subtle, progressive buildup of thematic resonances.

The absence of plot leaves the reader room to think about other things.

Resolution and conclusion are inherent in a plot-driven narrative.

Death, I had discovered long ago, was available in varying flavors, and none of them particularly palatable.

The timeless promises of God are our confident hope.

Christian liberty is freedom from sin, not freedom to sin.

Faith is not merely a journey for the feet, but it is also a journey for the heart.

Courage is the goal of cowards.

I need to give affection and love, because without that, I wither. I need to give that love to someone. Without that, I'm rudderless.

What keeps the democracy alive at all but the hatred of excellence; the desire of the base to see no head higher than their own?

Nature, my dear sir, is only a hypothesis.

Kings and magistrates are invested with no more power than the people entrust to them.

I went to a Catholic school with 40 kids total. There were no cliques, but I suppose I was the sporty good girl.